Ice Hockey Workouts: Three Dumbbell Tools that Can Improve Your Routine

One of the things that is used in most ice hockey conditioning workouts are dumbbells. These versatile free weights can be used for a wide variety of different arm exercises, something that is very important to ice hockey players. There are a few tools that can help you with your workout routine, some of which are plate mates, power blocks, and smart locks.

Plate mates are dumbbell tool and are often utilized by a number of ice hockey players in their workouts. Basically, they are very small ways they can put on the end of your dumbbell. They typically weigh anywhere from about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 pounds, so that you can add a small amount of weight to the pair of dumbbells that you are using, without having to swap them out for a whole new pair. This can save you a lot of money if you only want to buy a small set of dumbbells, as you will not have all the weights in a normal set.

Power blocks help hockey players improve their workout routine, as they are an adjustable type of dumbbell. These tend to look a little bit different than normal dumbbells, but they can be very effective for weight training. As the name suggests, they are a block shape they contain a number of rectangular weighted frames. The user can place a pin in the block to set the desired amount of weight. After choosing the right weight, and the blocks are locked in place, they work just like any other pair of dumbbells.

Smart locks are another dumbbell tool that quite a few ice hockey players like to use. These are an adjustable type of dumbbell so you can put more or less weight on them depending on the exercises you are doing. They tend to be very short bars that have spring loading so that you can easily add or remove weight to the dumbbell. By using one of these, you can eliminate buying a complete set of dumbbells, because you can choose the weight you want to put on them.

Sources:

Sports Fitness Advisor
Ice Hockey Helmet